Atlas van Nederland en de Indiën voor de Lagere School (“Atlas of the Netherlands and the Indies for the Primary School”) was a Dutch schoolroom geographical atlas of the Netherlands and the Netherlands East Indies, written by G. Prop and published at Zutphen by W. J. Thieme & Cie in 1930 — the twelfth edition of a work that had established itself, by the early twentieth century, as a standard primary-school geography of the kingdom and its colonies. The atlas is the principal documentary source for the Dutch primary-school geographical image of Atjeh in the early twentieth century, and therefore for the schoolroom framing of the Atjehnese territory in the colonial imagination.
Publication
The atlas was published at Zutphen by W. J. Thieme & Cie in MCMXXX — 1930 — as the twelfth edition (Twaalfde druk) of the work. The author, G. Prop, was a writer of schoolroom geographies whose atlas had established itself by the early twentieth century as a standard primary-school reference work. The twelfth edition of 1930 is the edition consulted in the present encyclopedia.
Scope and structure
The atlas covers the geography of the Netherlands (Part I) and of the Netherlands East Indies (Part II — “Oost-Indië”), with each chapter accompanied by sketch-maps, place-name exercises, and review questions for the primary-school pupil. The chapter on the Indies — chapter XIV, “Oost-Indië” — covers the principal islands (Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, the Moluccas, New Guinea, the Lesser Sunda Islands) in the order of their colonial importance, with the sub-section on Sumatra containing the atlas’s account of Atjeh.
The Atjeh account
The atlas’s account of Atjeh is recorded in the chapter on Sumatra (chapter XIV, section C), in a single compressed entry that fixes the territory in the primary-school geographical imagination:
“In Atjeh voerden de Nederlanders sedert 1873 oorlog: nu is er vrede en komt weer welvaart. Atjeh levert peper. … De hoofdstad van Atjeh heet Kota-Radja; voor de kust de belangrijke haven Sabang.”
The atlas’s three clauses — the reference to the war “sedert 1873” (“since 1873”), the assertion that “nu is er vrede en komt weer welvaart” (“now there is peace and prosperity returns”), and the identification of Kota-Radja as the chief town and Sabang as the important haven — together constitute the primary-school image of Atjeh in 1930: a territory recently pacified, now returning to prosperity, producing pepper, with its capital at Kota-Radja and its harbour at Sabang.
The atlas also identifies the Boekit Barisan mountain range as extending “van Atjeh tot aan Straat Soenda” (“from Atjeh to the Strait of Sunda”), and notes that the Toba lake region is inhabited by the Bataks. The Dutch colonial subjugation of the Bataklanden under Van Heutsz — recorded in the *Na 1795* textbook — is the implicit political-geographical background of the atlas’s account.
Significance
The Atlas van Nederland en de Indiën is significant for the encyclopedia of Achehnese history as the principal documentary source for the Dutch primary-school geographical image of Atjeh in the early twentieth century. The atlas’s compressed entry — fixing the territory as recently pacified, productive of pepper, with its capital at Kota-Radja and its haven at Sabang — is the document of the schoolroom framing of the Atjehnese territory in the colonial imagination, and of the way the Atjeh-oorlog was reduced, for the primary-school pupil, to a single clause: “In Atjeh voerden de Nederlanders sedert 1873 oorlog: nu is er vrede en komt weer welvaart.” The atlas is thus the primary-school counterpart of the *Na 1795* textbook’s account of the war, and the principal source of the Dutch primary-school geographical memory of Atjeh in the early twentieth century.
See Also
- Aceh War
- Boekit Barisan
- Bataklanden
- J. B. van Heutsz
- Koeta Radja
- Na 1795 (1924)
- Sabang
- Sultanate of Acheh
- Sumatra
- Toba
- 1873
- 1930
Source
Atlas van Nederland en de Indiën voor de Lagere School, by G. Prop, 12th ed. (Zutphen: W. J. Thieme & Cie, MCMXXX 1930), chapter XIV (“Oost-Indië”), section C (“Sumatra”).